Was reading some of the Metroid: Other M development artwork and checked out the Phantoon image.

The description states that Phantoon is a "Ghost-like monster that was hidden on the spaceship the Ancient Chozo used to come to Zebes."

So there you have it! The Wrecked Ship in Maridia is a Chozo spaceship, perhaps even the one used by the early colonists to arrive on Zebes.

The art also states Phantoon is an inter-dimensional being, with a physical body and an astral body (that's why you can't see the lower half of his body). What he's doing on the Bottle Ship is anyone's guess. Being able to clone an inter-dimensional being seems well beyond the capacity of the Federation. Most logical explanation now is 'he came back for revenge'.

Y'know, I'm sort of under the impression that Phantoon was probably another Chozo bioweapon developed as a proof-of-concept of Metroids. Super made a pretty big point over the fact that Phantoon absorbs the Wrecked Ship's energy. The whole thing just screams 'prototype' to me.

"You want a big floating jellyfish capable of sucking energy out of anything by Tuesday? Yeah, no problem; I'll get the lab boys to work on it as soon as possible."

Schrau wrote:Y'know, I'm sort of under the impression that Phantoon was probably another Chozo bioweapon developed as a proof-of-concept of Metroids. Super made a pretty big point over the fact that Phantoon absorbs the Wrecked Ship's energy. The whole thing just screams 'prototype' to me.

Not to mention the fact that there are very metroid-like creatures (I always assumed they were Mochtroids, but I could be wrong) in glass plates in the walls. The ship obviously has a Metroid creation lab in it. Hmm, fanfiction anyone?

The question is: do we even consider the "extra" part in MoM to be canon? It doesn't seem to really change the ending, other than her going back for his helmet. Maybe in a future title, we'll see the inside of her ship, and the helmet will make a little cameo sitting on a shelf in the back.

Saying the ancient astronaut skeleton ghost dudes are Chozo seems like a cop-out. Though it would explain the presence of chozo statues on the ship. Would have much preferred it being an ancient ship from a far-off civilization, Phantoon is the sentient AI that controlled the ship. When the ship crashed on Zebes, Phantoon suffered a fatal malfunction that turned it into a batshit crazy security system. Its presence on the ship is only possible due to it syphoning the power, thus when it is killed - power is restored. Same goes for the "ghosts", just hostile projections of old crewmembers assimilated by Phantoon into the AI security system (think Red Dwarf's Rimmer), though this time with the deformed and mutilated bodies that they died with in the crash.

Schrau wrote:Y'know, I'm sort of under the impression that Phantoon was probably another Chozo bioweapon developed as a proof-of-concept of Metroids. Super made a pretty big point over the fact that Phantoon absorbs the Wrecked Ship's energy. The whole thing just screams 'prototype' to me.

Not to mention the fact that there are very metroid-like creatures (I always assumed they were Mochtroids, but I could be wrong) in glass plates in the walls. The ship obviously has a Metroid creation lab in it. Hmm, fanfiction anyone?

The question is: do we even consider the "extra" part in MoM to be canon? It doesn't seem to really change the ending, other than her going back for his helmet. Maybe in a future title, we'll see the inside of her ship, and the helmet will make a little cameo sitting on a shelf in the back.

Yeah, I think it should be considered canon since it is a gameplay segment that doesn't contradict any other part of the game.

I always felt that the Chozo origin of the ship was heavily implied by both the presence of a chozo statue in a hidden section of the ship (though I suppose raiders could also have stolen a chozo statue from somewhere) as well as the presence of the metroid-like creatures. The hidden room in the top level of the ship actually has a what appear to be three metroid nuclei inside two domes flanking an upgrade, which I sort of interpreted as meaning the ship used technology derived from knowledge of the metroids as some sort of power source.

Whether phantoon and the other creatures were ghosts or not was up in the air in my mind, but I always leaned towards the idea that they were not since supernatural elements were not a part of the game up to that point. (I kind of lament the presence of chozo ghosts in Prime, though given the mysterious nature of the chozo's disappearance it may be interpreted that they're not really "ghosts" either.)

I do feel like pointing out that the fact that all of this was already implied or at least hinted at by the game shows that Metroid did have a story, a deep one by videogame standards of the day in fact. It just wasn't blatant.

I do feel like pointing out that the fact that all of this was already implied or at least hinted at by the game shows that Metroid did have a story, a deep one by videogame standards of the day in fact. It just wasn't blatant.

Exactly. Super Metroid (and to a lesser extent Metroid and Metroid 2) had an embedded narrative that was communicated largely through the environment and interactions with characters. Sakamoto and his team set out to create a 'story without words', and they succeeded admirably. You don't need reams and reams of dialogue to tell a story, and with Metroid, there are so few characters that most of the time you really can't! I'm hoping they'll go back to that, but these days, a 'story without words' for a blockbuster game might be akin to a Hollywood-made silent film in the 21st century...

I always figured Phantoon was some strange, space faring creature/species that was attracted to derelict ships for whatever reason, whether it be left-over energy, remnants of psychic energy left by loads of stress and fear, or just a weird attraction to broken down ships. Like hagfish that feast on the corpses of whales, some kind of weird niche. The fic Blackdie paints a really interesting portrait of Phantoon.

Satch wrote:What does she think Metroid is? A porno? Does she know it's Alien with Crayola crayons?

yodanut wrote:The hidden room in the top level of the ship actually has a what appear to be three metroid nuclei inside two domes flanking an upgrade, which I sort of interpreted as meaning the ship used technology derived from knowledge of the metroids as some sort of power source.

I always interpreted those as the "energy-producing crystals" that the player's guide said Phantoon was absorbing his energy from.

yodanut wrote:Whether phantoon and the other creatures were ghosts or not was up in the air in my mind, but I always leaned towards the idea that they were not since supernatural elements were not a part of the game up to that point.

The Super instruction manual explicitly states that both koben/covern and phantoon are ghosts. I personally take the instruction manual as canon, so in my mind the issue is settled.

yodanut wrote:I kind of lament the presence of chozo ghosts in Prime, though given the mysterious nature of the chozo's disappearance it may be interpreted that they're not really "ghosts" either.

I think the scan data is quite explicit that they are ghosts.

Man is the lowest-cost, 150-pound, nonlinear, all-purpose computer system which can be mass-produced by unskilled labor.-NASA in 1965

CapCom wrote:Exactly. Super Metroid (and to a lesser extent Metroid and Metroid 2) had an embedded narrative that was communicated largely through the environment and interactions with characters. Sakamoto and his team set out to create a 'story without words', and they succeeded admirably. You don't need reams and reams of dialogue to tell a story, and with Metroid, there are so few characters that most of the time you really can't! I'm hoping they'll go back to that, but these days, a 'story without words' for a blockbuster game might be akin to a Hollywood-made silent film in the 21st century...

Is a story without words destined to failure in this day and age? Maybe, maybe not. I suppose it depends on several factors, amongst them just what people expect from the game. Limbo, for example, tells a story of a sort without any words and manages to create a compelling tone through it, although that is a 2D throwback of sorts. Perhaps better examples are Portal and Portal 2 which tell elements of its story through the background and art. Personally I think a Valve-like approach to story-telling in Metroid would work very well, but unfortunately Valve seems to be the only developer actually taking that unobtrusive and organic approach to videogame storytelling.

You're right, they seem more interested in creating big-budget games turned into movies. Part of it is that is what a lot of designers want or desire - a game that resembles a film (and they've been trying to do that for decades) - but part of it is also what the players expect. Story ends up being a set of rails for the game to roll along.

To comment on your other two examples...

I haven't played Portal 2, but Portal had a lot of dialog, and of course the narrative told through text scrawled on the wall. That's different than Super Metroid or Limbo. That narrative isn't at the core of the game.

With Limbo, I agree with you - but only as far as the first third of the game goes. Once you defeat the giant spider and get to the factory area, there's really not much narrative left. It's just a little boy going through this weird world solving puzzles. There's no real story here as far as I'm concerned. But the first part is phenomenal - they tell so much just by having these guys run around. There's a logical this-then-that to the events with the people. Of course, maybe I'm still just scratching my head with the ending, but I became less impressed with the game as it progressed far past that point - in terms of story and art. Puzzles are still fantastic and it's got solid design through and through.